Iraq and it's Al-Queda problem

[Shady]

ISIS was spawned in Iraq.

Not really, they came from Syria.

[Argus]

Indeed......So how did Saddam ever control Iraq?

He had all the guns, and a really good secret police organization.

[Argus]

And what will happen if Iran openly involves itself in Iraq.......You don't think Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf States will mind?

I don't care what the gulf states mind.

[Rue]

Iraq like Afghanistan is not governable by Western imposition. The Kurd, Shiite and Sunni states forced into the one Iraqi state by the British is not manageable and never was. Its like the former Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia only existed because of Marshal Tito. Once he died it could not function and imploded. Iraq imploded once Hussein was removed. In the absence of a leader, of course the Shiites took over and the majority Sunnis smack in the middle of the Kurds to the North and Shiites to the South felt under attack and fought back.

There is a war being waged in the Middle East between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Syria is one arena, Iraq another, Lebanon the third.

Egypt represents a Nasserian pan Arab approach which defines Arabs not by religion but by a common tie to Arabic language and sees it as a nationality not a religious definition.

Syria, Iraq and Lebanon are permanently unstable because of this war which threatens to spread.

Obama's foreign policy blew it. He failed to understand this dispute. He thought he could cozy up to the Muslim brotherhood portraying himself as a friend of Islam while trying to pose as a Christian back home in the US. He fooled no one. His kissing the Saudi Arabian Prince's hand and bowing to him sent a message across the Middle East within seconds that he was weak and subservient and he never recovered from that monumental gaff. He then by choosing to pose as the friend of Erdogan in Turkey and Morsi in Egypt destroyed any remaining credibility. Future stability in Egypt depends on its military at this point and the same might happen in Turkey. I personally predict a coup d'états in Turkey within two years.

Until Obama is gone the Middle East will burn in the absence of a strong American leader.

Whether the world likes it or not, without American strength displayed in the Middle East, the area goes up in flames. Israel has been abandon by Obama and his sucking up to Turkey alienated him with Greece, Israel, France and Germany. Germany was so put off by his sucking up to Turkey it sent Israel submarines. NATO does not trust Turkey in direct conflict with Obama who still pushes them as a major player. The EEC wants nothing to do with Turkey.

Cameron in Britain has all but abandon the world stage. France has tried in Africa, showing force against Arab extremists in Mali, the Cameroon, and its tried to put out a civil war in the Central African Republic which was also being incited by Muslim extremists but it has limits.

The US can not financially afford any more wars. Bush's disasterous Haliburton contracts in Iraq make it impossible for the US treasury to finance the US armed forces.

The US should rip up all contracts with Haliburton immediately. Soon it will be a moot point. Al Quaeda is going to blow up everything Haliburton built making the rewarding of it construction contracts a farse.

Obama will do zero. Its another fall of Vietnam. Thousands of Iraqis are going to be slaughtered and in a week or so we will have an Al Quaeda fundamentalist sunni nation which will then wage war against Iran who already have invaded Shiite Iraq. The Syria-Iraq Sunni v. Shiite war will continue and Turkey is going to get burned. It tried to suck up to Iran while supporting Sunnis fighting Iran in Syria. The erratic Erdogan who hates the Kurds and Jews as much as he does the regime in Syria will now find himself directly in conflict with Iran and suddenly his enemies the Kurds and Jews will become allies again so he thinks. The Kurds and Jews are sitting this out as the Sunnis and Shiites kill each other.

[eyeball]

He had all the guns, and a really good secret police organization.

I've read most Iraqi's were actually armed throughout Saddam's rise and reign. Apparently an armed citizenry is no more a hedge against an abuse of power than a politician's word.

Clearly its the secrecy that really keeps people down.

[Argus]

I've read most Iraqi's were actually armed throughout Saddam's rise and reign. Apparently an armed citizenry is no more a hedge against an abuse of power than a politician's word.

Clearly its the secrecy that really keeps people down.

No, it's the fact if you said anything bad about him you'd wind up in his torture chambers, along with your family if you weren't careful.

[GostHacked]

Iraq like Afghanistan is not governable by Western imposition. The Kurd, Shiite and Sunni states forced into the one Iraqi state by the British is not manageable and never was.

Hard to disagree with the rest of your post. It's the way I see it too. Foreign will has been imposed on these people that do not want it. And it still causing issues decades later.

This move of opening up communications with Iran is a little confusing.

[GostHacked]

No, it's the fact if you said anything bad about him you'd wind up in his torture chambers, along with your family if you weren't careful.

No one here is making apologies for Saddam (like the US did when he was 'their bastard'). It's merely an explanation of a power and police structure that kept all this violence at bay.

[Argus]

No one here is making apologies for Saddam (like the US did when he was 'their bastard'). It's merely an explanation of a power and police structure that kept all this violence at bay.

And it is that sort of power and police structure which maintains order throughout the Muslim world. The US' bizarre efforts at setting up democracies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan have proven to be ridiculous wastes of time and money.

[GostHacked]

And it is that sort of power and police structure which maintains order throughout the Muslim world. The US' bizarre efforts at setting up democracies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan have proven to be ridiculous wastes of time and money.

That is what many of us have been saying from the start. But now many that supported the war on Iraq, are they understanding the situation. Of course it was going to get like this. Anyone with some foresight was able to predict this.

Also you take away the police structure in any major city in the west and we degrade to that level quick enough. The battle lines and reasons are different. It's not just there but anywhere. You remove a long standing policing structure and the people will do whatever they can to survive.

We could have saved American lives and money by not going in. Many of those deaths were needless and those lives wasted on a failed war based on false pretenses. Of COURSE if was going to freaking fail. It's no brainer.

[bush_cheney2004]

Still waiting for the UN. Still waiting for the "peacekeepers". Still waiting....

[GostHacked]

Still waiting for the UN. Still waiting for the "peacekeepers". Still waiting....

Like I said, we need some false reasons that the US government can come up with in order to invade. Get on it.

[Derek 2.0]

He had all the guns, and a really good secret police organization.

Clearly the current Iraqi government doesn't.

[Derek 2.0]

I don't care what the gulf states mind.

You might not mind, but if this conflict widened and drew in Iran and Saudi Arabia, anyone that purchases fuel from the Middle East certainly will.

[monty16]

Beginning with Rue, and then most others are so uneducated and uninformed that you will accept the standard US line of b.s. again and again. That is, as you've all been spoonfed to believe, Arab sects can't live peaceably together. In fact, even some who don't want to fall into the trap of being US apologists just do so anyway.

Saddam did succeed in keeping his country together and in relative peace. There were Sunnis, Shiites, Christiand, and other religious sects living side by side in prosperity before the US came to interfere. You're just not supposed to know that and you won't unless you're willing to investigate the question a little deeper.

At least everyone should know that the Iran/Iraq war had ended. At least everyone should know that that war was started, prolonged, and supported by the US.

The current situation is telling in that ISIS is sweeping through Iraq with little resistance. The Iraqi armed forces have no interest in fighting for US ideals and are dropping their arms or turning them over to ISIS. The lobical conclusion is, without US interference, Maliki's head will get cut off if he stays and a new leader or leadership will rise up to which enough Iraqis will fall in behind.

So by all means, continue to spew the old story about how Arabs can't live in peace with Arabs. It would take far too much effort to deprogram any propagandized US apologists at this late date.

p.s. The facts hold true for virtually every other Arab ME state, only the names of the victims have been changed.

[monty16]

Like I said, we need some false reasons that the US government can come up with in order to invade. Get on it.

The reason is one and is always going to be the same. The US thinks that if it doesn't kill them over there then they will kill Americans over here. There could be a bit of logic in that considering the grieveances built up in the minds of the people of Iraq. Some may reach outside of their country for revenge. The US going in will strengthen the likelihood of that!

At least the US knows that it can't continue to support Maliki. And as of yet, there's no other good choice. It's smelling more and more like another helicopter evacuation by Americans and Iraqis traitors with their tails tucked up between their legs.

[Shady]

Like I said, we need some false reasons that the US government can come up with in order to invade. Get on it.

They should ask Putin. He came up with some dandy reasons as to why Russia needed to go into Crimea and Ukraine. Oh and Georgia a few years earlier.

[GostHacked]

The reason is one and is always going to be the same. The US thinks that if it doesn't kill them over there then they will kill Americans over here. There could be a bit of logic in that considering the grieveances built up in the minds of the people of Iraq. Some may reach outside of their country for revenge. The US going in will strengthen the likelihood of that!

That is the line for the general population's consumption. The real reason was oil and the petroldollar as the dominant currency for trading oil. It was never about terrorism with regards to invading Iraq.

[GostHacked]

They should ask Putin. He came up with some dandy reasons as to why Russia needed to go into Crimea and Ukraine. Oh and Georgia a few years earlier.

Ask him what? Not sure, but it seems that Putin is not mincing his words. Not apologizing for it, but he did not seem to make any bull reasons like we saw with Iraq.

But this shows the major players can do whatever they want with little consequence. More proxy wars because a direct war would be devastating to the entire globe.

[Boges]

These guys appear to be more of a problem now.

[monty16]

That is the line for the general population's consumption. The real reason was oil and the petroldollar as the dominant currency for trading oil. It was never about terrorism with regards to invading Iraq.

Yes, of course we all know that. But regardless of some US apologists coming out and stating that it's about oil, (do you drive a car or heat your house) the US official line can never be that direct. It has to remain the façade of terrorism. In reality it's terrorism that the Us has fostered. And my point is that more bombing in the ME is just going to make it more likely that the US will see another 9/11.

To use the US's own words, 'in the form of a nuclear cloud'!

[monty16]

They should ask Putin. He came up with some dandy reasons as to why Russia needed to go into Crimea and Ukraine. Oh and Georgia a few years earlier.

It was entirely predictable that Putin had to go into the Crimea and grab it for Russia. He's just fortunate that he can spin it all in his favour because of the alliance of the Crimea to Russia. That's the facts and I would suggest they're not arguable now.

What is still undetermined is whether or not Russia can come out of this a winner. Or will the West's sanctions against Russia be effective enough to make Russia turn around on the Crimea. Or likely failing to force Russia into doing that, at least hurt Russia economically. Or politically in the eyes of the world.

You could make a meaningful discussion out of those questions if you wanted to. I would find it worth picking up on with you.

[Big Guy]

If you superimpose a map of religions over a political division map of the area then it may become clearer;

http://thesinosaudiblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/mid-east-religion.jpg

Magnify that map and take a close look. The political boundaries are those that the West has created and ignored by most of those in the region. Their affiliations are with family, tribe, religion, and sect. They have little to no sense of affiliation to an "Iran" or "Iraq" or "Afghanistan" or "Disneyland" or ...

Once one begins to understand what they believe in, what they want and what they are ready to do to get it then the situation begins to make sense. Remember that there was a civilization in Mesopotamia about 2,000 years before Christ. Local natives were running around naked, killing each other in North America at that time.

Our sense of arrogance in the West that somehow we are superior and we get to set the rules keeps getting us into situations where we pay a large price in blood and treasure as they educate us to the realities of their society.

Will we ever learn?

[Shady]

If you superimpose a map of religions over a political division map of the area then it may become clearer;

http://thesinosaudiblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/mid-east-religion.jpg

Magnify that map and take a close look. The political boundaries are those that the West has created and ignored by most of those in the region. Their affiliations are with family, tribe, religion, and sect. They have little to no sense of affiliation to an "Iran" or "Iraq" or "Afghanistan" or "Disneyland" or ...

Once one begins to understand what they believe in, what they want and what they are ready to do to get it then the situation begins to make sense. Remember that there was a civilization in Mesopotamia about 2,000 years before Christ. Local natives were running around naked, killing each other in North America at that time.

Our sense of arrogance in the West that somehow we are superior and we get to set the rules keeps getting us into situations where we pay a large price in blood and treasure as they educate us to the realities of their society.

Will we ever learn?

It doesn't matter where the boundries are, there will still be conflict in that region. Also, we actually are superior in our models of government, and rights and freedoms.

[monty16]

If you superimpose a map of religions over a political division map of the area then it may become clearer;

http://thesinosaudiblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/mid-east-religion.jpg

Magnify that map and take a close look. The political boundaries are those that the West has created and ignored by most of those in the region. Their affiliations are with family, tribe, religion, and sect. They have little to no sense of affiliation to an "Iran" or "Iraq" or "Afghanistan" or "Disneyland" or ...

Once one begins to understand what they believe in, what they want and what they are ready to do to get it then the situation begins to make sense. Remember that there was a civilization in Mesopotamia about 2,000 years before Christ. Local natives were running around naked, killing each other in North America at that time.

Our sense of arrogance in the West that somehow we are superior and we get to set the rules keeps getting us into situations where we pay a large price in blood and treasure as they educate us to the realities of their society.

Will we ever learn?

Most of what you say is true but the fact still remains that those countries had succeeded in many cases in finding stability. So regardless of UK colonialism, countries were successfully held together. Iraq did, Saudi does, Iran has, Syria had. Fighting and unrest since the fall of the S.U. has been instigated by the US. Wesley Clarke told us what would happen.

This is worth pursuing further because the facts can be found to show how many of those countries have succeeded. Relatively speaking of course. If you can call Saudi or Kuwait a success story even though they are brutal dictatorships being propped up by the US, you people should be able to understand how any ME Arab country can succeed. It either needs to be propped up by the US or if not then left to decide it's own fate.